Notre Dame Cathedral on Fire

[bing101]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/pariss-notre-cathedral-is-on-fire/2019/04/15/c487906e-5fa1-11e9-bf24-db4b9fb62aa2_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6353b983f750

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-notre-dame-cathedral-fire-photos-20190415-photogallery.html

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/notre-dame-fire/index.html


As of this time a section of the Cathedral has reportedly collapsed due to the fires.

[Max Rockatansky]

Apparently the roof and spite have collapsed so far.  My wife was recently in Paris, good thing she took her photos when she did. 

[J N Winkler]

According to the coverage I have read as of now (almost 3 PM for a fire that started at 11.50 AM my local time), the spire is gone, the roof is gone, the wooden vaulted ceiling in the interior is destroyed, and the stained-glass windows may not survive.  I am sure it will be rebuilt, one way or another--the cathedrals in Reims and Cologne came back from similar damage--but this is still a very sad day in our collective artistic and cultural history.

[Truvelo]

With modern building and fire safety methods they can easily rebuild Notre Dame to look like it did but with modern levels of safety and robustness. It may look a mess at the moment but in a few years it will be fully restored and unless you knew about the fire you wouldn't know what had happened.

[1995hoo]

With modern building and fire safety methods they can easily rebuild Notre Dame to look like it did but with modern levels of safety and robustness. It may look a mess at the moment but in a few years it will be fully restored and unless you knew about the fire you wouldn't know what had happened.

I'm sure I'm not the only forum member who read John Christopher's Tripods books when I was a kid (for those unfamiliar, it's sort of post-apocalyptic fiction). Watching the news today makes me remember when Will, Henry, and Beanpole cut through the ruins of Paris (not named as such in the book, of course) and came to the remains of Notre-Dame. I never thought that could be something that would happen in my own lifetime.

The only "good" thing I can think of is that it's Holy Week and this would have been far worse, probably involving fatalities, had it happened yesterday or anytime from this coming Thursday through Sunday.

[kphoger]

I'm sure I'm not the only forum member who read John Christopher's Tripods books when I was a kid

I've recently gotten back into reading, and that trilogy is on my short list.  I have only the vaguest memories of my dad reading them to me as a kid.

[1995hoo]

I'm sure I'm not the only forum member who read John Christopher's Tripods books when I was a kid

I've recently gotten back into reading, and that trilogy is on my short list.  I have only the vaguest memories of my dad reading them to me as a kid.

There is a prequel as well, but definitely do not read it until after you read the original three books.

I re-read the books a few years ago. I first read them when I was around eight years old because Boys' Life magazine (the BSA publication) was serializing them in comic-strip format and I didn't want to wait to find out what happened. It was interesting to re-read them as a 40-something adult to see various geographical references I didn't necessarily understand as a kid. They were still a good read and the final volume (The Pool of Fire) ends with a serious question.

[CtrlAltDel]

I’m overwhelmed by this. When I lived in Paris, admittedly many years ago now, this area was one where I spent a lot of time. I liked to sit on the steps down to the river and take everything in. The built environment modifying yet complementing nature was particularly intriguing to me; it’s surely part of why I later took an interest in roads. The many, many hours where I did nothing but sit there and look around gave rise to so many different thoughts, but the ones I remember most clearly now are of the nature of time: How many other people have seen essentially the same things that I saw? Did the people who walled the river banks know how long their work would last?

This summer, I’m leading a group of my students to Paris, and one of the things I was most looking forward to was going back to “my” steps along the Seine near Notre-Dame. I don’t know if I will now. On the one hand, much of the beauty and peacefulness will be gone. But on the other, this event is just one of a great many in the long history of the area. And the ten or fifteen years it will take to rebuild are almost nothing compared to the 836 since it was consecrated.

Still though, what I appreciated in this place was the sense of timelessness, and now that sense is gone, and I am sad.

[nexus73]

"Is Paris Burning?" is a movie about Hitler's order to burn Paris before the Germans evacuated in 1944.  Obviously Paris did not burn then.  Here it is 75 years later and finally something Big & Special burns.  Given that there was over 50 acres worth of trees used to make the nice interior, it is a miracle that this cathedral did not burn a long time ago. 

Come to my home city and you will see only masonry structures in downtown?  Why?  Because all the wooden ones burned down in the course of a century.  Every gap you see between buildings that are still there was once occupied by a wood one.  Go 24 miles south to Bandon, where a gorse-fueled fire wiped that city out in 1936.  That is our local history.  Now flash back to Chicago and Mrs. O'Leary's cow.  For a body count of 150K, the Great Kanto Plain earthquake saw the majority of lives lost in the resulting firestorm that was caused when the quake caused all those fired-up hibachis being used for lunch hour to tip over. 

Paris has been a very lucky city to have had so much survive for so long. 

Notre Dame will be rebuilt.  So much that was destroyed in the two World Wars has been restored.  Amazing isn't it how these people manage to recover over there!  The original building of Notre Dame taking so long was an act of faith in a future that was hoped for.  All this fire will do is inspire people to greater heights just as 9-11 and the falling of the Twin Towers did.  Whether by act of man or an accident, when something comes down, the measure of a civilization is whether it gets back up.  Whatever differences exist among people, the one thing they do have in common when in large enough groups is the ability to respond and recover.  Take pride in that trait, be inspired by what is to come as well as when it is taking place, then when Notre Dame 2.0 rises from the ashes, rejoice in seeing our species triumph in the face of disaster once again!

Rick

[SectorZ]

As I saw something today, regarding April 15th

1865 - Lincoln dying (was shot the night before)
1912 - Titanic sunk (hit the iceberg 11:40 PM on 4/14)
2013 - Boston Marathon Bombings

Now this. Ugh. This week in general has some sucky things that happened. Waco, Oklahoma City, Columbine. All overshadowing the most important event in American Colonial history occurring at the same time in 1775.

[Bruce]

As I saw something today, regarding April 15th

1865 - Lincoln dying (was shot the night before)
1912 - Titanic sunk (hit the iceberg 11:40 PM on 4/14)
2013 - Boston Marathon Bombings

Now this. Ugh. This week in general has some sucky things that happened. Waco, Oklahoma City, Columbine. All overshadowing the most important event in American Colonial history occurring at the same time in 1775.

On April 15, 1989, 96 people lost their lives at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield after a human crush during an FA Cup match, caused in part by poor crowd control. The aftermath was particularly awful, as Rupert Murdoch's Sun spread awful rumors about the Liverpool fans who survived the ordeal, accusing them of stealing from the dead and beating up policemen (neither claim held any truth).

On April 15, 1989, the Tiananmen Square protests began, which culminated in the massacre that killed around 10,000 civilians.

But hey, today is also the anniversary of Rand McNally's first road atlas being published.

[Chris]

French billionaires have already pledged very large sums of money to rebuild the cathedral. The owner of Louis Vuitton has pledged € 200 million and another billionaire has pledged € 100 million.

This is one of the most important cultural landmarks of France and by extension, Europe.

[J N Winkler]

Notre Dame was 15 to 30 minutes away from total collapse

So far about €650 million has been pledged for reconstruction and Macron is talking about rebuilding within five years.  All three rose windows survived.  However, there are three enormous holes in the vaulted ceiling and the structure will need to be stabilized before a full damage assessment can be carried out.

[roadman]

As I saw something today, regarding April 15th

1865 - Lincoln dying (was shot the night before)
1912 - Titanic sunk (hit the iceberg 11:40 PM on 4/14)
2013 - Boston Marathon Bombings

Now this. Ugh. This week in general has some sucky things that happened. Waco, Oklahoma City, Columbine. All overshadowing the most important event in American Colonial history occurring at the same time in 1775.

Even before the bombings, the Boston Marathon has always overshadowed the reenactment of the Battle of Concord and Lexington.

[roadman65]

Billy Joel had a hit song in 1988.  We Didn't Start the Fire and the words to the chorus are "We didn't start the fire, cause its always burning since the world's been turning."

[kphoger]

Billy Joel had a hit song in 1988.  We Didn't Start the Fire and the words to the chorus are "We didn't start the fire, cause its always burning since the world's been turning."

Ummm..  OK.

(We actually just watched that video Saturday night, because my wife had never heard the song before.)

[roadman65]

We forget the world before us had its problems.  We did not invent them, and until the end we will continue to have them.  Glad though no one was injured as it could have been worse. 

[Chris]

The Reims cathedral burned during World War I, but it was rebuilt.

[mgk920]

Billy Joel had a hit song in 1988.  We Didn't Start the Fire and the words to the chorus are "We didn't start the fire, cause its always burning since the world's been turning."

Ummm..  OK.

(We actually just watched that video Saturday night, because my wife had never heard the song before.)

IMHO, that song could be a great stepping off point for a study of the history of the mid-late 20th century/Cold War era.

As for the cathedral, already, just a couple of days after the fire, the equivalent of nearly USA$1*BILLION* has already been pledged to finance its reconstruction.



It is that kind of support from top-level benefactors that allowed facilities like that to be built in the first place.

Its structure was meticulously studied and surveyed in recent years, down to the level of otherwise unnoticeable  blemishes in hidden corners of its structure, so workers will have an astonishing wealth of information to go on.

Mike

[KEVIN_224]

Billy Joel's #1 single was in late 1989, not to nitpick. Moving on...

[mgk920]

The Reims cathedral burned during World War I, but it was rebuilt.

IMHO, the greatest European major church rebuild was the Frauenkirche in Dresden, Germany, a massive and iconic Protestant church that was reduced to a pile of rubble during the WWII firebombing in early 1945 and being as it was in East Germany, sat pretty much that way until The Wall fell 45 years later.  In the early 1990s, it was decided to rebuild it, using as much of the debris as possible in the new structure, which was completed in 2006.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden_Frauenkirche



Mike